The Malta Independent 25 April 2024, Thursday
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Before rape joke, 'Family Guy' had its critics

Associated Press Thursday, 2 October 2014, 15:03 Last update: about 11 years ago

This weekend's crossover episode of Fox's "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons" has received criticism for a scene where a character uses rape as a punchline for a joke. It's not the first time the adult-oriented humor on the animated "Family Guy" has gotten its creators in hot water. Here are some other examples:

-Fox declined to air an episode, "Partial Terms of Endearment," during the 2009-10 season when family matriarch Lois Griffin contemplates an abortion. She was acting as a surrogate for a couple killed in an auto accident before the baby was born. Fox executives said it was fragile subject matter at a sensitive time. The episode was later released on DVD.

-The episode, "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" was criticized as anti-Semitic by The Forward, a newspaper that spotlights Jewish issues. In it, the character Peter sings a song titled "I Need a Jew." Fox initially declined to air it, and it was shown first on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network in 2003. Fox then aired it the next year.

-Advocates for AIDS patients criticized a 2005 episode in which Peter was part of a barbershop quartet that dressed in red vests and danced around a man's hospital bed singing a song titled, "You Have AIDS."

-Sarah Palin called the show's writers "heartless jerks" for a 2010 episode in which the character Chris dated a girl with Down syndrome. When Chris asked what her parents did, she replied: "My dad's an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska." Palin, who had resigned as Alaska governor months earlier, has a son with Down syndrome.

 

 

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